Aster Peony Mix

Densely double incurved heads that mound into perfect rounded balls of 8 to 10cm, on sturdy 60cm stems, in a deliberately cool palette weighted towards violet-purple with pink and white running through it.

This is the quieter of our two peony-flowered mixes. Where the Duchess series gives you a full riot of cottage colour, Peony Mix stays in the cool half of the spectrum, which makes it far easier to use in a considered arrangement and rather less cheerful in a border. If you want colour to lift a September bouquet, take the Duchess. If you want something that sits alongside silver foliage and grey stone without shouting, take this.

It flowers August to October, holds up to two weeks in a cool room, and is a half-hardy annual sown fresh each year. The heads are heavy enough to want support on an exposed site. Aster wilt is the one real risk with any Callistephus, so rotate them round the plot rather than returning them to the same bed, and pull and burn anything that collapses at flowering time.